The Kings watch as their Stanley Cup championship banner is raised before a game against the Chicago Blackhawks on Jan. 19, 2013. JAE C. HONG, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

STANLEY CUP FINAL

Game 1: Kings 3, Rangers 2 (OT)

Game 2: Saturday at L.A., 4 p.m., NBC/4

Game 3: Monday at N.Y., 5 p.m., NBCSN

Game 4: Wednesday at N.Y., 5 p.m., NBCSN

Game 5-x: Friday, June 13, at L.A., 5 p.m., NBC/4

Game 6-x: Monday, June 16, at N.Y., 5 p.m., NBC/4

Game 7-x: Wednesday, June 18, at L.A., 5 p.m., NBC/4

x-If necessary

EL SEGUNDO – Three straight conference final appearances. Two berths in the Stanley Cup Final. One championship … and another one that’s just three wins away.

Division titles are the only thing missing from the Kings’ enviable three-year run from 2012 to the present. Just one division banner sits among the four resting high up in Staples Center – a Smythe crown won in 1990-91.

There might be another banner added to the rafters but it won’t contain the passage “Pacific Division Champions 2013-14.” And that is plenty fine with them.

Teams might covet their division and celebrate when it is captured but the Kings have appeared to adapt an attitude as if they could care less. They’re now solely about hunting bigger game.

“For us, the division title or Western Conference championship doesn't mean too much if you don’t get the ultimate goal,” center Jeff Carter said. “We come in every year at training camp focused on winning the Stanley Cup. That's our mindset from Day 1.

“Coaches do a great job of keeping us set on that plan, along with our leaders, the players in the room. Everybody knows what we need to do to get it done. We go out and do it.”

Amazingly, the Kings have not captured the Pacific despite being the team that’s won nine of its past 10 playoff series and the one its rivals must strive to beat in order to fulfill their own Cup dreams.

Phoenix was a surprise winner in 2011-12 but the Kings got the eighth and final Western Conference seed and then trampled the Coyotes during their 16-4 rampage to the franchise’s first Stanley Cup.

The Ducks have taken the Pacific the past two years but an extended Cup run hasn’t followed. The Kings settled into second place in 2012-13 and third this season, putting their focus in each case down the stretch on getting into their playoff mindset.

All that matters is getting into the tournament and then being the toughest to eliminate. Kings captain Dustin Brown doesn’t think there is a particular blueprint they follow when it comes to using the regular season to build for this time of the year.

“But I think there’s a mentality that goes … do you want to be a division champion or do you want to be a Stanley Cup champion?” Brown said. “There’s a mentality to that.

“The way we play the game, it’s a tough game to play for 82 games. There’s teams that get far more points than us during the regular season. But when it comes to playoff time, our type of style, our type of game we play and the players that we have, we become a really hard team to beat four times in seven games.”

San Jose has seen it two years running. The Ducks experienced that the first time. Chicago found that out, a season after being the team that dethroned the Kings on its own march to the Cup.

The four division winners this season – the Ducks, Colorado, Boston, Pittsburgh – all lost in the first or second rounds. And the only guarantee it gives teams is a better playoff seed and potential extra home game.

Chicago defied the odds in going across the board – division, conference, league – in 2013. But Pittsburgh was the only other titlist to get out of the first round. Two division winners – Phoenix and the New York Rangers – were among the final four in 2012 but got no further.

So the Kings might have to find room for an addition to the rafters. It will be for something that really matters.

“It’s funny when you look at Staples,” Brown said. “We don’t have banners all the way across. But we have the banner we want. We’re in the process or search of that next banner.”

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